抄録
Water tree is one of the degradation aspects of XLPE cables used for under-ground distribution or transmission lines. We have developed the loss current method using 3rd harmonic in AC loss current for cable diagnosis. Harmonic components in loss current arise as a result of the non-linear voltage-current characteristics of water trees. We confirmed that the 3rd harmonic in AC loss current had good correlation with water tree growth and break down strength. After that, we have applied this method to the actual 66kV XLPE cable lines. Up to now, the number of the application results is more than 130 lines.
In case of cable lines terminated at gas-insulated switchgear (GIS), we have to remove the lightning arrestor (LA) and the potential transformer (PT) out of the test circuit. The reason is that we are afraid that each of LA and PT disturbs the degradation signal from cable lines. It takes extra time (1 or 2 days) and costs more to remove LA and PT in GIS out of a circuit. In order to achieve easy and reasonable diagnosis, we have developed a new method for cable lines terminated at GIS, by utilizing a technique, which enables to reduce signal of LA and PT from disturbed signal of cable lines. We confirmed the effect of the new method by experiments with actual cables.
